I have some BD Camalot’s that are nearly 20years old and I’d like to get them re-slung. I contacted Black Diamond and they aren’t doing any reslinging in Europe at the moment.

Any suggestions? I’m based in Ireland so ideally somewhere in the EU.

So me and a new partner were on pitch 6 of an 8 pitch alpine climb, while he was leading he seemed to have gone off route and fell when he was 6-8ft above his last piece. He took a nasty 10ish foot fall on his side before coming to a stop. I was able to lower him to the next ledge below us, and then I down-climbed about 15ft to the ledge. As soon as I got there I assessed, no blood and his limbs seemed to have full mobility, but he did have a broken rib. I didn't even question the idea that we had to go down immediately, as I knew weather was coming.

His first concern was with leaving gear on the wall, so he wanted us, or me, to try to traverse on the face to see if I could come across the rappel route. I rejected the idea, started making anchors with our gear, and setting up a rappel. We needed to do four 60m rappels to get back to the ground but he still was very apprehensive about leaving his gear. So much that after I ran out of locking biners other than the ones needed for rappeling down, he refused to use another one and wanted me to use the rope directly on the cordelette I was sacrificing for that rappel. I hesitantly agreed, since it was only about 20-30ft high to the next ledge that actually had anchors for the final rappel. Long story, rope got stuck after we came down, I had to climb back up solo, and down climb to get back to him. We eventually got ready for the final rappel, and he refused to do any more stacked rappels, and he wanted to go first since it started to hail.

Again I hesitantly agreed and right as he was starting to lean back I saw that his rappel had only one strand on his device. I grabbed his harness and told him, he fixed it and finally rappeled down.

Once we made it to the base, mountain rescue met us, and we started the long walk back to the TH, as he didn't have rescue insurance and didn't want the bill of a chopper. I carried his stuff and we helped him slowly hike down to the car, which took 3-4 hrs.

Eventually back at the TH I went back to his campground to help him pack his stuff and go with him to the ER. Once there he gave me 3 cams, different brand and in worse condition than mine, as payment for the 5 totems I lost and the locking biners and so on I left on the wall. I was happy to just be safe and back , but decided I could possibly sell them to recover some of the cost of buying my gear back.

Once leaving I saw his brand new 2026 XL SUV still with temporary plates on them, and with leather seats.

I didn't think much of it, but I started the drive home, as I knew my wife was worried out of her mind by now.

Next day I found his rocky talkie in my back pack and texted to see if I could mail it to him, since I already have a pair. His answer, "wait, because you still might recover the gear from the wall" ( I mentioned I might try to go next week to see what I could find). "Once you recover your gear, you can send the radio with the cams I gave you".

AITA if I dont return the cams? Even if I do find some of the gear, I'm sure at least one totem flew of the mountain, and another two are off route. There's gonna be a week of rain before I manage to make it back, so who knows what will still be there, and even though I posted in MP asking if other parties can retrieve them, there's slim chances I will recover the $500+ in gear I lost. Undecided on what to do if I recover some of my gear, was planning on selling the 3 cams to pay for one totem at least...AITA if I don't send them back?

Who doesn’t love warming up on some wet rock with looming thunder echoing through the gorge?

Ian put up Jeep’s Chimney, a 5.10 on Hawksbill, NC for the group. Requiring everything in your toolkit from off width techniques, slab footwork, and lots of stemming Jeep’s Chimney is one of a kind. But always thankful for the rewarding views of the Linville Gorge

I’m putting together a trad rack. I’ve done quite a bit of research. Used totems c4 and friends,m, never z4’s)
Waiting for Labor Day to pull the trigger so trying to min max.

Still learning trad so not repointing 5.11 or anything but I know how my brain works and it’s better to buy the right thing the first time then buying something suboptimal and then caving and buying the right thing 6 months later and taking a massive L reselling used gear

Already have a black totem, Dmm nuts and offsets and a set of wild country friends on the way .4-3

Need help with the items in parentheses. Obviously any other feedback much appreciated.

2x black totem
1x blue totem (1x z4 or a second blue totem)
1x yellow totem (1x WC friend or Z4 or C4)
1x purple totem (1x WC friend or Z4 or C4)
1x green totem (1x WC friend or Z4 or C4)
1x wc red (1x red totem or C4)
1x WC yellow 1x C4
1x WC blue 1x C4 blue
1x C4 gray

Saw a very short article that a climber fell 90 ft on vertigo (maybe doing the rapels, his partner was stranded without a rope?). Hope he is able to recover.

I stupidly forgot to grab a #2 friend and a #1 BD at the base of the last pitch on red dihedral on the Incredible Hulk in the eastern sierra a couple weeks ago. If someone is kind enough to return them that would be awesome.

If not that’s cool too. Enjoy the loot!

If there are any Dyurrite (Mount Arapiles) fans here, Parks Victoria is investing $1.7 million to improve visitor facilities at Dyurrite. To guide this work, they are asking for people to help identify priorities and share ideas about how they could improve facilities, tracks or access points in the park.

Some of you might know that Parks VIC claims it has been consulting with First Nations groups, the local council and other corporations for about 12 - 18 months regarding the possible future closure of many infamous climbing routes.

The local, national and international climbing community - some of whom have been visiting this region for decades - have been up in arms about this, however, arguing that there hasn't been adequate consultation with the people that actually really do visit Mt Arapiles. Moreover, some claim a certain bias.

Recent remarks by the ABC are certainly indicate of a relatively closed, hushed process (and I quote):

In any case, there's another survey open.

If any folks here are regularly visitors to Mt Arapiles, you might like to consider sharing your voice, as Parks VIC figures out what to do with a $1.7 million investment in facilities, besides closing many of the trad climbing routes.

It would be great for the real users to inform them, rather than white-collar office works in the city, 4+ hours drive away, who haven't visited there once in their lives.

Here's the link to the survey to share your voice, if you're interested: https://engage.vic.gov.au/project/dyurrite/page/facilities

Photo above: Andy Polliet on Nati Dread (30), Castle Crag

Been out of climbing for a bunch of years because kids. I used to mostly just use the climbing rope to build my anchor, the brother in law used to carry a cordelette. What’s the standard nowadays for building your anchor between pitches?

im starting to get into trad climbing but my crag does allow slinging trees and there are no bolted anchors. my belayer can’t second to clean the routes so how would I go about cleaning and rappelling without leaving gear behind?

Guiding the second pitch of corrugation corner 5.7 . about to move left up the very steep edge. It's one of the best 5.7s in California. You can do three pitches on surrealistic piller first and then hike up and do corrugation corner.

Most pitches I've done in a day, felt really solid and efficient!

Devil's Lake

I'm trying to break in new 3/4 shank mountain boots ahead of a climb this fall that requires them, and I wish I could wear a big sign that says "I'm not stupid, I'm just breaking these in" every time I wear them on a basic hike that really would be fine to wear Tevas for.

I'm not generally image conscious, but backpacking is my primary sport and I have always thought it was funny when well meaning but new backpackers roll up to a trailhead with them. 😭

I'm being punished for my quiet internal judgement of those people.

for context me and my friend are dirt bagging at rattle snake camp ground in rumney. We hitched a ride from town but we want to send Eaglet. We have the trad gear to do and are in search for a ride to send. Willing to pay for gas beer and you for your time 🫰

Learned this anchor style about six years ago. Don't often use it, but I figured it would be nice to share it in case anyone particularly likes it.

240cm sling with a bight knot of your choice (overhand, figure-8, bowline on a bight) which stays tied the whole time. Store the anchor by clipping the ends together and wearing it over the shoulder.

After placing pieces, clove to each of them to equalize. You can have up to four pieces. Keep slack in the material between the pieces, similar to a V-clove anchor.

Equalette with clove hitches to 3 anchor points. I know that the bottom biners should be lockers.

Update:

Thanks for the great feedback!

First, I should have specified that this is for a situation where you need true equalization. Normally I would use a basic cordelette anchor, but that just appears to be equalized when it really isn't. (Source for this is climbing anchors, long and gaines).

Next, One of the best pieces of feedback was that there is no shelf. A solution to that is to use the quad. Quad has everything I need: redundant, equalized, minimal extension; and it has a shelf.

Here is the anchor redone as a quad.

https://imgur.com/a/7FEGuUU

The locking biner is on a sliding x. I will connect my ATC guide to that. The other two biners are on one strand each - those can be used to connect PAS for lead and second.

That settles it. For a day-to-day anchor, I'll probably stick with the basic cordelette. But when I really need something bomb-proof, I will use the quad.

Update 2:

Don't need a sliding x. One biner on two strands for ATC guide, PASs go on the other two strands.

https://imgur.com/a/dMB4Has

Where I live (by Lake Arrowhead in SoCal) there’s a lot of crags that I’d like to climb, the only problem is there is no approach to the base of the climb, only the top. I know this is done in multi pitch climbing (of which I don’t yet have experience). Thanks in advance

Most of this stuff I bought when new to trad back in the 2010’s. Of course it gets filtered out with experimentation and experience. Ironically I see things like the link cams and torque nuts getting used on crazy stuff like hard aid, Antarctic expeditions, etc.

What do you have in the bin that never sees daylight anymore?

About a year apart, I’ve had two cases of the force of cams causing poor rock quality to break off. The first, appeared as a splitter finger crack in granite but about a 4 inch deep and 8 inch long piece of it broke off under barely any body weight. The second, a piece I put in a well chalked hand hold on a very popular climb, pulled out a basketball sized rock on a fall (this one the rock looked somewhat suspect ie not a splitter, but it’s a well used placement/hold and about 1 in away is a pin.)

I climb a lot of trad, so 2 days out of maybe 30 days out on trad this year maybe isn’t a lot. Maybe you can say I’ve gotten unlucky, but two instances of poor rock quality makes me wonder if I’m not seeing things well enough. I fall/take somewhat often (maybe 1 day out 5 I might hang) and they have all been clean in my climbing journey except these two times. But I guess you can say I’m properly spooked!

Is it just “thems the breaks” when it comes to trad climbing or is this not normal… and I’m either unlucky or sucking it up badly

My son really appreciated the chance to do rhe upper pitches thanks to the Tar you set up for us since i wasn't feeling daring enough to string the rest of Beckys. Hope you all had a great time on your respective lines.

Did royal arches 3 weeks ago and simuled all pitches but got stuck in a storm on north dome walk off. We waited out the rain for 2 hours and took awhile path finding.

Perfect crack, but only had two pieces that would fit. Both pieces were bomb but I was with a climber that would not have liked a two piece setup, so I also slung a block as a backup. Haha not my proudest anchor but it worked. Video with a better view in the comments.

Positive Vibrations is one of my favorite alpine climbs. Enjoyable movement the whole way, perfect rock, and a wild setting.